Coup-de-Poing

Abstract

I AM glad that Prof. Sollas has commented upon a remark of mine in my review of Mr. Neville Jones's book, as it gives me an opportunity of correcting an error of my own. When I referred to Prof. Sollas's “Ancient Hunters,” in order to ascertain his original application of the term boucher, I read the passage (p. 112) as indicating that he wished to apply it to implements “made by striking off with a single blow a thick flake from a larger block of stone, and dressing the side opposite the surface of fracture by several blows directed more or less parallel to its length.” I have again read the passage and realise that his intention was to suggest boucher as equivalent to the French coup-de-poing. I was misled through not having read the passage on the succeeding page, and I assumed that “it” in the sentence “In English it has no name,” referred to the type described as above quoted. My reading of the paragraph was also partly influenced by the author having drawn a decided parallel between the Tasmanian implement-type, to which he had just referred, and the so-called coup-depoing series. I apologise for having misinterpreted his intention.